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Every country has a strong alcoholic drink that residents prepare themselves. In our country it’s moonshine, in the Balkans it’s rakia, in Georgia it’s chacha. A traditional feast in the Caucasus is accompanied not only by world-famous wines, but also by stronger drinks. For Georgia, chacha is an integral part of the national tradition. In 2011, the government even received a patent for it.
Chacha from grapes at home it is easily expelled. The recipe for making it is only slightly different from moonshine. A large number of vineyards contributed to the emergence of the tradition of preparing alcoholic drinks from this sunny berry. Of course, wine will always come first for Georgians. But the waste remaining after its production and substandard grapes, which even the most well-groomed vine produces every year, allowed the residents of Georgia to prepare a strong, aromatic drink from them.
Home chacha can be made from any juicy and fairly sweet southern fruit. It will be tasty, aromatic and strong. But grape chacha has become one of the calling cards of Georgia. In Abkhazia it is usually made from varieties Isabel or Kachich, in the west they use Rkatsiteli.
Features of chacha
Chacha is called Georgian brandy. Indeed, among strong alcoholic drinks it is considered a relative of cognac. Of course, chacha made from grapes is not so noble, but if it is properly prepared and cleaned, it will be aromatic and easy to drink.
Raw materials and technology
Georgian brandy is made from pulp left over after wine or juice production. Unripe grapes must be added to it. In order to remove unpleasant odor and increase strength, cooking chacha involves double distillation.
If the drink is immediately bottled after distillation, it is called white. Chacha aged in an oak barrel is considered yellow.
Strength and taste
We are used to the fact that strong alcohol is 40 degrees. This is why our tourists can get into trouble in Georgia. They simply don’t think about how many degrees there are in the chacha. But even “light” factory varieties cannot contain less than 45-50 percent alcohol. Chacha at home is usually prepared with a strength of 55-60 degrees, and sometimes even 80 degrees.
The taste of the drink, made according to the rules, is light and pleasant. And if it was infused with herbs or fruits, then the degrees may not be noticed at all. Insidious drink! Moreover, it contains as much as 225 kcal per 100 g. And this is neither more nor less - 11% of the daily value.
Traditions of use
It is interesting that in the west of Georgia it is customary to snack on this drink with sweets, and in the eastern regions - with pickles. In Abkhazia, it is served before a feast as an aperitif, but drinking chacha at a family celebration is considered bad manners. Residents of mountain villages often drink a glass of strong drink in the morning before going to work.
Real Georgian chacha
For anyone who has at least once distilled moonshine, preparing chacha from grapes at home will not be difficult. Just what kind of drink will this be? Will the residents of Georgia recognize it or say: “Oh, what moonshine”?
Before preparing chacha, read the recommendations. If you deviate from them, you will get a strong alcoholic drink, only vaguely similar to real Georgian brandy.
- Grape pomace left over after making wine or juice is used as a raw material. Unripe or substandard berries and ridges are a mandatory addition for mash.
- The recipe for chacha from grapes at home involves using only wild yeast. And no sugar! Of course, you can’t make a drink from sour grapes.
- During distillation, Georgian brandy is not divided into fractions. It is distilled twice and then purified.
- Strong alcohol aged in any wooden barrel other than oak cannot be called chacha. Containing less than 45% alcohol - too.
The above tips apply to preparing real Georgian chacha; if you are making an adapted drink, then you can add sugar and use whole grapes instead of cake.
Chacha with and without sugar
Homemade grape chacha, the recipe for which you brought from Georgia, is prepared only without sugar. Now let's think a little. Residents of warm regions grow sweet grape varieties, the sugar content of which is at least 20%.Moreover, in cold and cloudy summers its content will be significantly lower.
The northern regions also grow grapes. But the varieties there are adapted to local conditions, their sugar content is usually 14-17%, and even less if there is a lack of light and heat. You can, of course, not prepare chacha at all, since it will be different from Georgian. But no one will forbid you to add sugar, and even if the product is slightly different from the original, it will still be tasty.
There is one more point to think about. Real traditional chacha is made from the pomace left over from the processing of grapes into juice or wine. Even if the sugar content of the berries was at least 20%, the output will be 5-6 liters of chacha from 25 kg of waste and substandard. By adding 10 kg of sugar, the volume of the drink will increase to 16-17 liters, and the preparation time will be halved.
Chacha recipes
We will tell you how to make chacha with and without sugar. Of course, the taste of the drink will be different. But Georgian brandy prepared in the Caucasus also varies. Each family makes it in its own way, the secrets are passed down from generation to generation. It seems nothing complicated, but for some reason two neighbors living next to each other have different chacha.
Sugarless
This recipe is original Georgian, although it is the simplest. The taste of the drink will differ depending on the grape variety (it is better to take white) and its sugar content. It also matters how the pulp was obtained - you made juice or prepared wine, how and how long it fermented. If you squeeze out the cake completely, you won’t get tasty chacha; it should contain about 20% liquid.
Ingredients:
Take:
- grape bunches and pomace – 25 kg;
- boiled water – 50 l.
The taste of chacha will largely depend on the proportion in which you take the cake and substandard grapes. The clusters may contain unripe, small, and deformed berries. To prepare real Georgian brandy, their addition is mandatory.
Preparation:
Do not wash the bunches (so as not to remove “wild” yeast), do not pick the berries, just free them from leaves and debris.
If you have a special press, pass the grapes through it. If not, mash thoroughly, trying to crush each berry.
Place the grapes and pulp in a fermentation container, add water, and stir with a wooden spatula.
Install a water seal and place it in a warm place protected from the sun. It is desirable that the temperature remains between 22 and 30 degrees. If the content is cool, fermentation will not occur, but in a hot room the bacteria responsible for it will die.
Stir the contents every few days.
Without sugar, with natural yeast, fermentation can be weak and last more than 30 days. In some cases, it may take 2-3 months; keep this in mind when choosing a method for preparing mash for chacha from grapes.
When fermentation stops, it's time to move on to distillation. Fold several layers of gauze and squeeze out the mash.
Do not throw away the cake, but tie it and hang it from the top of the distillation cube.
After the first distillation, you will get a foul-smelling chacha with a strength of 40 degrees.
Dilute it with the same volume of water, remove the cake and put it to distill again.
Clean the drink. We will tell you how to do this in a separate chapter.
Dilute to the desired strength and bottle the chacha, place it in a cellar or other room with a low temperature for a month and a half.
With sugar
It is much easier and faster to prepare a drink whose mash recipe calls for adding sugar.
Ingredients:
Take:
- cake and bunches of grapes – 25 kg;
- water – 50 l;
- sugar – 10 kg.
Preparation:
Prepare the grapes in the same way as described in the previous recipe.
In a fermentation container, mix pulp, water, sugar.
Install a water seal. Place the mash for grape chacha in a dark, warm place.
Shake the fermentation container or stir its contents daily.
When the water seal stops producing bubbles, start distilling.
All subsequent steps do not differ from those described in the previous recipe.
Beverage purification
You should not clean chacha with potassium permanganate, coal or soda. This will change the taste for the worse. There are many ways to garnish homemade alcohol, and they were not invented for fun. Improperly purified alcohol can turn from the drink of the gods into slop. Of course, this primarily concerns wine. But why spoil the taste of Georgian brandy at the final stage?
Without cleaning, chacha has an unpleasant odor and contains many harmful substances. It is impossible to completely remove them at home, but it is possible to significantly reduce them.
Casein cleansing
This is a cheap way. It will remove unwanted impurities, improve the taste, and destroy the unpleasant odor. To do this, add 200 ml of cow's milk to 10 liters of drink. Place in a dark place and shake the mixture twice a day. After a week, carefully drain the sediment and filter.
Pasting with pine nuts
This method is not cheap, since pine nuts are expensive. But the drink will not only be purified, but will also acquire an incomparable aftertaste. True, the cedar tree will have to be thrown out later, as it will absorb a lot of harmful substances.
A handful of peeled nuts is added to each liter of chacha, placed in a dark place, then filtered and bottled.
Watch a video about making chacha:
Conclusion
Prepare chacha according to one of the suggested recipes and enjoy the aromatic drink. Just remember that it is easy to drink and contains a lot of alcohol.
